


Checkmate

by Daybreak



Category: Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daybreak/pseuds/Daybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victory for him was usually the end of the chase and the beginning of tedium. With her boredom simply hadn’t occurred. At least it had not occurred yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madamedarque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamedarque/gifts).



> I know you requested the Marquise as she is a wonderful character. I couldn't resist writing her and Valmont together because they are quite fun together. I imagine this taking place about five years before the events of the movie and/or novel. Enjoy!

He remembered the first time he laid eyes on her. She had been wearing gold, which he was to later learn was her favorite color. She had been with a group of young women her age, some of them married with young children. Reputable, happily married women. He had known she was a young widow, just out of immediate mourning. All of this had been unremarkable. He had passed that group of women by as he usually did. It wasn’t that a married woman wasn’t beyond being debauched. It was that it was an utterly ordinary thing to make it happen. Destroying a young family wasn’t nearly as interesting as one thought it might be.

But the Marquise. She had laughed at that long ago party and he had caught sight of her, blond hair piled high, a light in her eyes. She was beautiful. She hadn’t even caught him looking at her but had quickly lowered her voice to rejoin conversation with her companions. Why hadn’t he ever noticed her before?

As was his habit, he had asked her to dance, one in a line of her many admirers. Their conversation had been unremarkable and she'd been polite, kind and respectable. Perhaps he had just imagined something different moments earlier? He watched her again on the ballroom floor. Light on her feet and gay. It had been said that she had loved her husband, but if she had grieved the man still there had been no evidence of it that day. Later, he asked her to take a walk with him around the grounds. She glanced at an older woman who nodded her assent.

“You’re the most beautiful woman here.” It was fact and he had no compunction in stating it as soon as they were out of earshot.

She smiled, not as gay as before, but politely. “So I’ve been told. Three times tonight, in fact. Surely, you can do better than that.”

He gaped at her, rude as it might be. She just smiled wider, the light he’d seen before shining out of her eyes.

“You are not just the grieving widow,” he recovered.

He’ll always remember that moment before she spoke. It was like a shade fell from her and no, it was clear that she was not all what she had seemed. She suddenly seemed much older and far more interesting.

“No.” Her voice even sounded older. Still sweet, but with grit. He felt himself tighten. _This woman is different._ “And you are more than just a careless rake. Or are you?”

“You know of my . . . adventures?” He was never this upfront with women. But she didn’t even flinch.

“I know that you probably want to make me one of them. You should set your sights . . . elsewhere. I’d eat you alive.”

This time he did laugh. “You’d try.”

He was young but he too was no innocent. It was refreshing, this candor. She smiled again—she really was lovely—and at twenty-five the flush of youth still upon her cheek. She was like peaches and rose, she even smelled of roses.

She was serious now, eyes downcast, her hands clasped in front of her as she walked. The picture of prim propriety. But he was wary. He had thought he had known what he was dealing with. A smart woman but respectable, above reproach. This was completely unpredictable. He immediately recognized the feeling. The chase. She would surrender; they all did in the end. But he savored this moment when he thought maybe not, maybe this time he wouldn’t win.

“There’s a gathering next week at my salon,” he suggested.

“A gathering of you and me? Or of you, me and your whores?”

He was startled into silence again, recovering quicker this time.

“You and me,” he said, staring at her, his intent clear. Why not brazen it out? Apparently she had researched him. And if she had been that interested in him before they’d even met, then that was a weakness he could exploit. It was her turn to look surprised, her eyes widening a little.

“Frightened?” He asked.

“Hardly.” She actually sounded bored, turning to walk primly down the hallway again. But he’d seen that spark in her eyes. He pulled her into a nearby alcove.

“Are you sure?” The alcove was close, dusty, and they weren’t completely screened from the others at all. But none of that mattered to him. She didn’t seem concerned, either. Her eyes meeting him squarely, her chin proud and high.

He had not missed that the Marquise had best décolletage in Paris and he stared his full before lowering his head to her neck and she shivered. He had expected it but he hadn’t expected to be so affected by her response. He breathed softly on her neck, not even kissing her yet.

“Not here,” she said in a steadier voice than he could have managed at the moment. Everything in him said _here, now,_ and _his_. He couldn’t even keep up with all the things he suddenly wanted from her.

“Then where?” His hands encircled her waist with a light grasp. She didn’t pull away or toward him.

Her brow wrinkled delicately. “Cygne Blanc Pond.”

“Outside?”

“Yes,” she grinned. “I’m no ordinary lover.” He grinned back, loving this even more. She was spectacular.

“No.” His forehead was on hers now. He could have just leaned on hers for several more minutes but just as he finished the thought she reached up and kissed him. Sure and thorough and sweet.

“When?” The word was out before he realized and she laughed.

“Well, there’s the garden party at Madame de Roussand’s. Right off the pond. I could manage to leave early. Is that soon enough for you?” She was enjoying this too, there was pride in her tone now as well and he couldn’t care a damn.

The party was two days away, he calculated. Then it was his turn to kiss her. Dipping his head to her lovely bosom. He could hear her fingernails scrape the wall as he trailed his mouth from her cleavage back to her neck. It was a sound he’d carry with him into the evening. The she pulled herself away, re-tightening her stays, looking flushed, ripe and aroused.

“But it is it soon enough for you?” He managed to reply and somehow got out of there before he pressed her up against the wall again and damned the consequences.

Her tinkle of laughter followed him down the stairs. _Two days_.

\----- ----- -----

“You’re . . . angry.” She sounded amused that Monday afternoon and that actually calmed his ire rather than kindling it. It was clear that she had planned all of this. Her laugh at the party had probably been calculated as well.

“Just eager. I waited, you know.” He sat down on her settee, throwing his leg over the arm, trying not to think about the hours spent at the cottage house by the pond. She seemed completely unperturbed by how comfortable he was in her home.

“I know. Did you really think it would be that easy?” She looked up from the playing cards at the table across the room, with a chiding glance.

He hadn’t really thought about it which had probably been a tactical error. Wednesday she had been just another beautiful woman. On Friday she had been another challenge to conquer. Now . . . after a week of this he didn’t quite know what she was. She was toying with him for sure. He knew the game but had never been the prey, just the hunter.

“If you want me to place my attentions elsewhere . . .”

“I didn’t say that,” she interrupted, turning her attention from the cards to him. It was his time to grin, trying not to let it turn into a smirk. Touché. But he admired her grit. She didn’t blush or flounder.

“I just wanted time,” she said quietly. “But perhaps that’s too difficult for you?”

Continual challenge. He was beginning to thrive on this. He walked over to where she stood.

“Not at all,” he said, reaching past her to turn over another card, the win, then walked out the door not even having to see her look of surprise or her smile to know it was there.

“You know how to reach me,” was all he said.

\----- ----- -----

He watched her lean back over the couch, flushed and panting. Exquisite. He should feel triumph but didn’t. He could admit to himself that most of his own passion had been the thrill of the chase. But not all of it. Not all of it for he wanted her still, even though he’d just had her.

It was perplexing but he knew his ardor would cool once she said it. Every woman said it eventually, it was in their blood. But not her, not yet. He’d even found himself thinking the words and having to concentrate on not blurting them out in the middle of their most enthusiastic activities.

“I adore you,” he murmured instead. Every woman wanted to be adored and he could feel her preen a little at his words. Nothing much outwardly, except perhaps her settling even more comfortably back on the couch.

“After that performance, I think you should adore yourself.”

He grinned, taking absolutely no offense at her words.

“You should,” she offered generously. “You were magnificent.” There was no teasing in her tone and she looked back at him with perfect calm.

Praise had been rare from her these past several weeks and at this moment she sounded sincere. The crux of it was he could never quite tell when she was serious and when she was laughing at him. Perhaps he never would.

He leaned up. “Madame,” he replied formally, kissing the top of her breasts, each in turn. “It has been quite an honor to serve you.”

She laughed, almost giggled, and it was as young a sound as he’d ever heard from her.

“A long and hard . . . service should be rewarded,” she replied, looking down at him.

He paused in his task at the idea of a prize. What was she suggesting? Hadn’t he already won the biggest prize?

“If you can manage to get Veronique de Blanc to marry you then I will remain your lover . . . indefinitely.”  
He sighed and leaned his head upon her chest. Indefinitely. He liked the sound of that. It worried him a bit how much he liked it. In discreet circles he had learned more about the Marquise. She had rarely kept a lover for more than a few weeks. To be an exception to this pattern was intriguing. He leaned his chin on her shoulder.

“Marriage wouldn’t suit me.” It was true. Every woman he’d ever met would agree, including his own mother.

“It’s the mantle of respectability that will protect us, Vicomte.” He sat up entirely now, reaching for his shirt thrown over the back of the settee. It was always Vicomte when he displeased her. But his lover indefinitely. That would give him time to bind her to him. Ger her to say the words. Then he could leave on his terms, victorious. It was the way it always happened.

“If marriage is so respectable, why don’t you remarry as well?” He watched her pull up the bodice of her dress where he’d eased it down in their haste. She tied the stays tightly and he marveled at how well she could compose herself when he knew for a fact it took no less than six maids to dress her in the morning.

“And who, pray tell, should I marry?”

“Bastide, of course,” he said, picking the name of her other lover. He hadn’t even known he’d been jealous of the man until he said the words. He hoped she refused. A lover was one thing; a husband quite another. It wouldn’t stop them, of course, but still he hoped her independence meant more to her.

“Marrying one’s lover?” She smoothed down her many skirts, hopelessly wrinkled as they were, and sat up straight. “How . . . cliché.”

The barb struck unexpectedly home and he moved away a little from her and began to dress as well. You shouldn’t play with a porcupine if you didn't plan on getting poked, he thought, watching her small feet slip into slippers, now stockingless.

So what had he been considering? Marrying her? It was a ridiculous thought. So what if being with her was endlessly stimulating, always on the edge of rapture and despair? So what if marriage to her might be the beginning of a continual chase, rather than the end of one? She would never have him as a husband. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. She would believe that she’d lost to him and legally and socially it might very well be true.

“Well,” he said, after a long pause. “Just get him to propose then. I’m sure it’s in your power to do that, my darling. And then you can refuse him the way you did all the others.” Perhaps that would satisfy her. Neither one of them was one for a single conquest. There always had to be more.

“All right.” She stared at him, as composed as she could be, her blond hair repined in a simple twist. “If I achieve this feat, what should be my reward?” His hand moved to hers but she remained still.

“Other than that,” she replied. She certainly was prickly.

“Why my undying love, of course,” he quipped back. She grinned as well but with far less warmth. She knew what reward. He knew she had to have heard the whispers about them, discreet as they were. The people in their circles were watching for who would win, who would give first. The reward was triumph which was her carrot as well as his. He took her hand and kissed it, turning it to linger on the inside of her wrist.

She need not know that he’d actually been contemplating marriage to her, something he had _never_ thought seriously about before. By him even considering marriage to her, whether she realized it or not, she’d already won the first bout.

\----- ----- -----

“I never figured they quite had the imagination for it.” She looked calm but he could sense rage under that exterior as she sat on his couch, her back erect. For once, he was really glad not to be in Bastide’s place.

“Veronique didn’t have quite the intelligence. Yet, here we are.”

“He’ll pay, of course. You’ll help me.” It was a statement and she just looked at him for confirmation.

“It would be my pleasure.” He sensed this wasn’t the moment to try and seduce her. Not yet. Secretly, he was relieved that Veronique had run off with Bastide. That game, while stimulating, hadn’t been the task he’d set for himself.

Slowly he walked over to her. He sat on the farthest edge of the couch away from her.

“If only happiness could be our greatest reward,” he said. Her head snapped round to him. Fury made her sparkle. Her face still but her eyes bright and hard.

“You must be tired, Vicomte. Since when did happiness have anything to do with it?”

He moved closer to her hand. “You’ve been happy with me.”

She scoffed but he took her hand anyway and she allowed it.

“Admit it.” He brought his lips to top of her hand. He could tell he was distracting her from that magnificent rage, a fact that both entertained and irritated her.

“You are . . . amusing.” He kissed her again, on her wrist, feeling her pulse throb under his lips. He knew her well now. “Stimulating,” she added and he laughed and she joined him as he released her hand.

He recalled the light in her eyes when she’d received the dozens of yellow roses in her bedroom, her genuine surprise at the new hat on her birthday, and her still and quiet after their most intimate moments. This was happiness, wasn’t it? It had been so long . . . All he knew for sure was it was in those moments that he wanted her most, when he knew he was winning. Victory for him was usually the end of the chase and the beginning of tedium. With her boredom simply hadn’t occurred. At least it had not occurred yet.

“I think we should concoct the most divine revenge,” he said, sitting quite close to her now, bending his head to her neck. His heart wasn’t in his words but he sounded just the right note of bitter and vicious that she probably felt.

She smiled a strange smile. And she leaned up to kiss him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“You do make me happy,” she said in that still, quiet voice she had only so often, so ephemeral he’d almost thought that he had imagined it.

“Very happy,” she repeated. He closed his eyes and tried to close his heart to her. To her beautiful face, smiling sweetly, to the feel of her warm and pliant in his arms. If something seemed to be too good to be true, it usually was. He knew that himself. But for once he didn’t care. She was impossible to resist like this, and he buried his head into her neck, the smell of powder, roses, and the sound of her contented sigh drowning out all else.

 _Exquisite_. It was the last conscious thought he remembered having.

\----- ----- -----

“Where is she?” he shouted, drowning out Azolan’s soft murmur upon his waking. It was way past dawn though the sky was as dark as twilight.

“Gone.” It was the obvious answer and he longed to snarl at his valet. He could see that she was gone. He had awakened cold and alone and had just known.

“You let her leave?” He pulled on stockings, as Azalon handed him items of clothing, knowing that he didn’t want any of the other of his men to hear this conversation.

“My lord, that was yesterday. You’ve been sleeping.”

He paused, pulling on his jacket.

“Sleeping? How could I have—”

 _The wine._ The little minx had drugged him. He’d be annoyed if she weren’t so damned clever. “We need to find her.” It couldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t let it.

“She’s gone to England.”

“What?” She never failed to amaze him. “In this weather?” He could hear the wind trying to tear off the shutters.

“Ship set sail across the Channel yesterday. Had clear skies then. I tried to wake you but you wouldn’t wake up.” The lilt in Azalon’s native Scottish accent made him seem even more mournful. It was possible the man had been worried his lord wouldn’t awake at all.

“She left you a note,” the valet continued, handing it over.

It was her handwriting all right. Neat and precise. It read:

 _My dear Valmont,_

 _Last night was extraordinary. Your reputation is quite, quite well-earned. Brava and all of that. Unfortunately, it is to be our last night. It wouldn’t do to fall in love with you like so many other women have. Where would be the fun in that?_

 _I can stand out only as the one who got away. And don’t worry, dear Valmont, we will meet again. In the meantime perhaps you’ll learn a little . . . patience._

“When’s the next ship?” He asked after he read it, almost knowing what the answer would be.

“A week with this storm. The rain’s turning to snow. Are you going to go after her?”

“No,” he sat down heavily on the bed, waving the other man away.

If he kept following her now he’d be a laughingstock. If he weren’t one already. “It wouldn’t do to fall in love with you,” she’d written. He remembered her gasping his name that last night, at the peak of climax. An exclamation forced out by desire but no less real. She was right. He’d had many women fall in love with him before. And he would again. But he sensed not one of them would ever be like the incomparable Marquise.

Had her own pleasure disturbed her, worried her about her independence? Or had the entire affair been a ruse designed to defeat him from the beginning? Her every act and phrase calculated to the most effect? Maybe she had cared nothing for her former lover at all and her main task had been to embarrass and humiliate her current lover—him.

Two nights ago, she’d been warm and yielding in his arms. True feeling there or not, it had had been worth it to have her. His unparalleled equal. Even in defeat, he admired her. She was his greatest challenge and he had relished it. Actually, being with her hadn’t been his greatest challenge. No, that would be winning her back. He thought carefully. Then smiled. Let her come to him. That always worked with women. It might take time, a long time. But they were young. They would travel the same circles again. Remain friends. Let her come to him. It was the only thought that calmed him and kept him from running into the snowy night after her. That and the thought that such a typical male response would only bore her and drive her further away.

And after all, he was always at his best with a true challenge.

\----- ----- -----

Epilogue

 _My dear Vicomte, you must come back to Paris, you really must. . . . You must pack your bags at once, I have need of you. I’ve dreamed up a really wonderful scheme . . ._

He put the letter down, feeling the thrill again at the memory of her face, the sound of her voice calling his name, his given name.

He smiled and picked up a quill.


End file.
